Germany Expecting 1 Million Migrants This Year

Germany’s vice chancellor says the country can expect 1 million migrants this year, raising the previous estimate by 200,000.

Sigmar Gabriel said in a letter to members of his Social Democratic Party that “everything points the fact that we won’t have 800,000 migrants as has been predicted by the Interior Ministry but 1 million.”

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In the letter, Gabriel called for other European countries to do more, saying there had to be a “common European effort” to tackling the refugee crisis. Germany takes in more asylum seekers than any other EU nation by far.

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Over 5,800 people fleeing their homelands have entered Hungary in one day, by far the highest number this year, as the country prepares to apply new immigration rules and tighter border controls.

By 8 a.m. Monday, police said another 3,280 people had been detained for crossing the border illegally, taking Hungary’s 2015 total to nearly 195,000.

Hungarian authorities hope reinforced border patrols, a 4-meter (13-feet) high fence on the border with Serbia and new laws criminalizing those entering Hungary illegally or cutting through the fence will deter migrants from coming to Hungary as they try to make their way to Germany and other, wealthier EU nations.